Just to celebrate the middle of the week last Wednesday, we opened a bottle of one of my favorite wines: La Bastide Saint-Dominique Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Secrets de Pignan.

Don't be fooled by the similar look of these bottles of La Bastide Saint Dominique Secrets de Pignan as one is clearly superior to the other!

We discovered this wine by chance while dining at Chez Papa, a French restaurant here on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. I took Steven there to celebrate his birthday a couple of years ago and our waiter recommended the 2004. Ahhhhh!!!!

I was hooked on Secrets de Pignan the moment I took my first sip! What can I do? I simply adore Rhône varietals, particularly grenache, especially from Châteauneuf-du-Pape. And the 2004 is simply amazing with lush elegant body, ample noise and long finish.

After the successful introduction to this wine we kept buying 2004 bottles at our wine shop until, sadly, they were sold out.

Then the 2005 came out. Steven bought a couple of bottles and stashed them away to mature and drink for a special occasion like Wednesday. When I saw him opening the bottle last week, I already imagined myself floating on a fluffy white cloud in heaven. But, alas!

It was more like hell. The wine was terrible. Simply terrible!!! I can barely describe or contemplate the dreadful flavor: cheap sour grape juice maybe?

Steven read somewhere that there is no good wine, but rather a good bottle of wine. Could that be the case? Maybe my 2005 was corked? Maybe it simply is bad? Oh, Lordie-be!

I am devastated: both because I am so disappointed by the 2005 and because I bought a case of 2007 Secrets de Pignan. Like 2005, 2007 is also supposed to be an excellent vintage. Steven did read an excellent review of the 2007 but apparently not the 2005. So maybe that’s reassuring. But now I’m worried; very worried. There’s nothing to do but crack open an ’07 and taste it.

you crack me up! I wish I had a bottle right now, good preferably, as I am contemplating from afar my son’s fiddling with host and server and my site being off the radar for ? hours? days?
Oh well. I have plenty to do and later, we are headed back to the mountain with Andrew and Will and Nick and we’ll fix some Pimm’s and all will be well in this world.

Have a marvelous time in the mountains with these boys. Pimms is a perfect drink for a hot summer day… refreshing. It makes you relax and enjoy the present despite of all the vicissitudes of life. TasteofBeirut is back up!